Don't let social media think for you • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#211

Post by verall » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #185

jfengel wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as a noose that's unrelated to death. That's what they're for. The puzzle may not be related to death, but the noose is. And in the US there's no such thing as a noose that's unrelated to race. They are being used, today, as racist threats. When a noose appears, lynching is the assumed meaning, and not just by black people [1]. So it's a good thing that Lone Star is taking a look at the entire p…

I didn't downvote you, but a noose in a locker is wildly different from making a pun about "headline news", and to suggest otherwise is foolish. "There is no such thing blah blah" - yes, there is, it's called context. Someone who feels threatened by a pun "headline news" with a noose is not properly adjusted to the adult world. Do kids not play hangman anymore? More broadly, I think twitter lowers the bar for whining…

Yes, and a part of this context is that Lone Star invokes images of the old state of Texas. When they lean into this, if they are not careful, they lean into some really awful events. It's not the same as the same pun on a bottle of Snapple.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#212

Post by cecilpl2 » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

dionidium wrote: post #123

SamBam wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. 10,000 voices braying your name as an evil-doer itself does harm. This isn't a kid being told on a playground that "words will never hurt you," that's always been a lie. Here is a case [1] of a man being falsely doxxed for the assault on two kids on a bike path last summer. The voices calling for him to be brought to justice, calling him a racist, etc, numbered in the tens of thousands. The retractions from peopl…

I'm not so sure proof by counterexample is useful here. My point is that in most cases the people screaming at you seem like they're doing harm, but they can't actually do harm until somebody in a position of power in your life listens to them. [0] I think you can mostly forgive the cowardly behavior of these authority figures up to about a year or so ago on the grounds that the social media mob sure feels like a rea…

Reputational damage is real damage, unless you are arguing that reputation isn't a thing which is patently false.

Careers and lives are made and lost on the back of reputation. Companies can be destroyed by the social media mob.

"Everyone should just ignore them" is not a reasonable argument. Even if there were no actual consequences, fear of consequences or fear of others' fear of consequences... is enough. It's a coordination problem.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#213

Post by aidenn0 » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 9:21 PM UTC

One of the great social advantages is the outsourcing of thinking; knowing everything about everything is just not possible.

There have always been distortions due to this, particularly in small insular communities. Social media seems to amplify the distortions though; you can end up with a large insular community. After all, if dozens of people all agree with X and nobody disagrees with X, how can it be wrong?

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#214

Post by beaconstudios » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #179

beaconstudios wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large-scale community is an oxymoron, and I think the sooner we realise that the better. Communities are built on trust and relationships, what happens at social platforms is that people with "large communities" are just creating followings the same way that celebrities always have, which are a weird modern corruption of the idea of a community (or if you want the academic term for it, a parasocial relationship).

People with huge followings are just e-celebs, but one can be a (shallow) part of a large community of people with similar interests in a particular topic. To the extent that you have somethin gin common with other people, and to the extent that that thing is unusual or costly in some fashion, you'll typically going to feel a sense of connection to someone you hear or read about without necessarily knowing them.

Yes I think there are two things that are needed to form bonds: small numbers, and common context. Having a common interest in motorcycle repair or horticulture or something works, but HN's common interest is just commenting on the Internet and probably being a programmer, which isn't significant to bond over even disregarding the huge group size.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#215

Post by jrm4 » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

SamBam wrote: post #42

The mob is a huge problem with Twitter (and adjacent social media), and the issue with a mob is purely that of its size. It's the size that makes the mob, and everyone who has ever considered chiming in to add their voice why so-and-so was bad should stop to think about whether the world really needs that additional voice. Each individual voice may be perfectly right . So-and-so may really have done wrong. But did th…

But of course -- compared to what?

Twitter sounds awful in a vacuum if described like this, and indeed it does have lots of problems. But, if we are going to have very huge and influential corporate sources of information, Twitter is MUCH more defensible than e.g. MSNBC/CNN/Fox, in that its significantly more "little d" democratic. The thousands of voices available there are far better than the tiny few coming from many other sources, and because the platform is generally "open" in that we can see what others post.

I think Twitter is actually doing an excellent job, given the incredible difficulties involved with what it does, especially as compared to a Facebook, etc.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#216

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

mariodiana wrote: post #195

aeturnum wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The man who pulls the lever that breaks your neck will be a dispassionate man. >And that dispassion is the very essence of justice. >For justice delivered without dispassion is always in danger of not being justice. Based on the reporting I've read on the internal cultures of police departments and the wider "law enforcement" community (federal law enforcement, prison administration, etc) I am pretty skeptical that…

Maybe the essence of justice is its effect, and by effect we're not talking about its effect on the accused but on the rest of society. The political science class I took back in college (over 20 years ago now) began with the Oresteia trilogy, by Aeschylus. The issue there is between "frontier justice" (actually, blood feuds) and civil justice (justice of the polis ). The message there is that there can be no civiliz…

The Hateful Eight.

Really long (it's more of a stage play), but like most of Tarantino's films, the dialogue is stellar.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#217

Post by OJFord » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 9:28 PM UTC

sharken wrote: post #113

beaconstudios wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large-scale community is an oxymoron, and I think the sooner we realise that the better. Communities are built on trust and relationships, what happens at social platforms is that people with "large communities" are just creating followings the same way that celebrities always have, which are a weird modern corruption of the idea of a community (or if you want the academic term for it, a parasocial relationship).

I think of Hacker News as a community, but it's still large enough that you don't really notice who is posting. What makes a difference to me are the insights you get here combined with thoughtful answers, as in rarely the lowest common denominator type of discussions. For that there are all too many forgettable social media sites.

It took me years, (I don't mean that to sound like I was trying) but I have actually started recognising quite a few usernames. Not even particularly prolific/high karma users, or at least not only them, just people with some common interests so we're frequently reading/commenting on the same things I suppose.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#218

Post by joshlemer » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

sbagel wrote: post #181

paxys wrote: post #76

There are so many comments here blaming Twitter while blissfully unaware that HN fuels the exact same online outrage. Almost every day there's a " did bad thing to me" article on the front page and people immediately pick up their pitchforks and join the mob. You cannot fix the problem without acknowledging that we are all part of it.

100% and in many cases communities like HN are worse than sites like twitter because it has upvotes and downvotes which effectively drowns out and silences marginalized voices. You can't downvote or flag a twitter post preventing others from reading it. I mention flagging because users here regularly flag opinions they strongly disagree with in mass as a way of removing them from discussions to great effect. HN cultu…

What might be a better mechanism to bring the best content forward, which doesn't suffer from this issue? Would you just advocate against downvoting in general, or is there something else you have in mind?

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#219

Post by philsnow » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

> These pluralities are unable to exist on social media. There must always be objective truth, there must always be a side that wins, a side that loses [...]

But neither side "wins". They both just shout louder and louder in their own side's echo chamber, with only a tiny porthole into the other's echo chamber, until it finally blows over.

Getting bent out of shape on twitter is like screaming obscenities into a pillow, but there's a public record of what you screamed.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#220

Post by seattle_spring » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #76

There are so many comments here blaming Twitter while blissfully unaware that HN fuels the exact same online outrage. Almost every day there's a " did bad thing to me" article on the front page and people immediately pick up their pitchforks and join the mob. You cannot fix the problem without acknowledging that we are all part of it.

> Almost every day there's a " did bad thing to me" article on the front page and people immediately pick up their pitchforks and join the mob

It's even worse than that: Frequently there's a "Cool technology blog by company," and people come chime in with their completely unrelated grievance with .